


don't you worry about me, friend

by everythingFangirl



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Dreams, EpicSMP, Flashbacks, Friendship, Gen, I guess this could qualify as, Mild Hurt/Comfort, SCU references, funky formatting, this html took me ages to figure out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29093616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingFangirl/pseuds/everythingFangirl
Summary: I would never change what our past isWritten in our bones, it's who we areI just can't control where my mind goesWhen it goes too far~On the nightmares haunting Charlie and Ted, and the rising of the sun.
Relationships: Charlie Dalgleish & Ted Nivison, No Romantic Relationship(s), nonononono - Relationship
Comments: 29
Kudos: 77
Collections: Dream SMP Connected Storylines





	don't you worry about me, friend

**Author's Note:**

> The Palcove has been completely consuming my brain for the past two weeks, about time I wrote something for these boys. Watch me create angst and backstory where there is none
> 
> Also tried out some new things with HTML and formatting, fingers crossed it doesn't all break horribly. This is really a more experimental work, but I hope you enjoy it! Quick note though, some of the formatting in this works out much better on desktop than mobile, so reading on desktop is somewhat preferred for the sake of that effect. If you can't, no worries, though!
> 
> Title and description quotes are from the song La Lune by Madeon.

_The void sings._

_Not many hear it, but you do. Not many understand it, but you do._

_You always have, haven’t you? Even if you denied it. Even if you were too scared to admit it._

_The murmurs, the whispers, the hum that has surrounded it since the day you found it, the sounds you dismissed as simply strange or frightening, they fill you now. And you finally hear the melody that has grown to a choir, a symphony, ringing in your head and in your bones and in your blood, and you understand it, and every cell in your body sings along with it._

_The void winds through your lungs and into your bloodstream and to your fingertips and through your eyes and you let it. It's around you, it's with you, it_ is _you, and you let it be. Because you were meant for this. You were born to be this. You were destined for this since before your time in this world began._

_Your fate was sealed the moment you gave yourself up to it, in a life now long forgotten._

_And there is no going back._

_You, you - there is no 'you' anymore. The person you knew yourself to be is gone, left behind, forgotten. You don't need him anymore. Because the void is you, and you are the void, and you will be intertwined in an eternal dance until all barriers fall away and_ all _will be you and_ all _will be -_

|  | 

_The wind screams in your ears as you watch your brother fall._

_The ground crumbles beneath his feet and he plummets into the nothingness beneath it, and a few moments ago he could have perhaps saved himself, but he’s not a god anymore, is he?_

_You see him reach out to you. You hear him scream. You do nothing._

_Make no mistake: this was your fault._

_It’s your fault that the chaos of this world has become as miserable as it is. It’s your fault that you have all been driven to the extremes that you’ve gone to. It’s your fault that your brothers are suffering._

_The hand that offered the apple was yours, wasn’t it?_

_Haven’t you become exactly what you vowed to destroy back then?_

_And still you do nothing. And still our remaining brothers standing beside you do nothing._

_You do nothing as I fall, weightless, helpless. You do nothing as I crash through the earth, as the ground splits and cracks beneath me and spits me out to hellfire and impossible, impossible heat. Nothing._

_This was your fault._

_Your fault._

_Your fault -_  
  
---|---|---  
  
Ted jolts awake, gasping for breath. The feeling of choking, of emptiness in his lungs and under his hands and behind his eyes refuses to fade as he desperately gulps for air in a panic, because the nothingness, the, the -

The horrible feeling of emptiness finally begins to subside. He keeps breathing, deeply, drawing in as much air as he can, trying to calm his racing heart. A dream, yes, it must have been a dream, just a -

“Ted?”

He winces as the voice rings through his head, too loud, too loud -

It’s just Charlie. Just Charlie.

“You okay?”

He’s looking at him with a concerned expression on his face. His eyes are red, like he’s been crying. Ted decides not to mention it. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Just a bad dream.”

“Yeah,” Charlie repeats. “Yeah. Bad dream.”

He wipes at his eyes. Ted draws in another breath, sighs it out. It’s okay. Just a dream.

|  | 

Charlie swims awake slowly. The afterimage of the heat that tore through his body in the - the dream, it must have been a dream - fades slowly, replaced by the chill of the morning air; he blinks away the fire that’s burning behind his eyelids.

There’s something wet on his cheeks. He wipes the tears away before Ted can see them. Ted - Ted's awake too, gasping for breath with the desperation of a drowning man.

“Ted?”

He jolts, twisting around to face him, wide-eyed and panicked. When their eyes meet, it takes Ted a moment to recognize him, relax, breathe again.

“You okay?”

Ted nods slowly, studying his face for a moment before averting his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Just a bad dream.” Another nightmare, then. Charlie doesn’t ask further.

“Yeah,” he repeats. “Yeah. Bad dream.”

Charlie wipes at his eyes again. Ted draws in another breath, sighs it out. What a pair they make, huh?  
  
He wishes this weren’t so complicated. 

He’s glad to have Charlie back, really. Infinitely so. It’s been far too long since he’s really spent time with any of his friends, or even known where more than a handful of them are at a time. Charlie was one of the hardest to keep track of. But he’s here now, he’s here, and it’s better than Ted could have ever expected. 

At the end of the day, they're friends. Pals, if you will. They know each other better than many do, better than most. They've been through hell together and come out swinging.

And it would be such a relief to just tell him everything, share that burden even for a little while…

Nothing’s changed, right?

But everything’s changed. _He’s_ changed.

Charlie doesn’t know, he wouldn’t understand, he hasn’t even _seen_ the goddamn hole that’s been haunting his nightmares -

It feels like his own burden to bear. Almost as if there’s a reason it was _him_ that was chosen to see this. 

It’s fine. He’ll be fine.

Even if on some mornings, he wakes up and feels more alone than ever.

|  | 

He wishes this weren’t so complicated. 

He’s glad to have Ted back, really. Infinitely so. With everywhere he’s been, everything he’s gone through, everything he’s lost… Just a few months ago, he would have thought he’d never see him again. But he’s here. He’s here, and it’s more of a relief than he could have ever imagined. 

At the end of the day, they're friends. Pals, if you will. They know each other better than many do, better than most. They've been through hell together and lived to tell the tale.

And it would be so good to just tell him everything, share that burden even for a little while…

Nothing’s changed, right?

But everything’s changed. _He’s_ changed.

Ted wouldn’t understand, right? He - he - he couldn’t know. Not really. 

And besides, they’ve already got enough going on. No need to burden him more than he has to.

It’s fine. He’ll be fine.

Even if on some mornings, he wakes up and feels more alone than ever.  
  
Charlie’s the first to move, desperate to get his brother’s voice out of his head. 

“Breakfast? Are you hungry?” He forces cheer into his voice, prays that if he tries hard enough, it’ll become real.

Ted nods, forces his hands to relax from where they’re gripping at his bedsheets, as if holding on tight enough will stop the world from slipping away from him again. “Yeah. Breakfast sounds nice. I’m starving.” That’s not a lie. It feels like there’s a roaring chasm where his stomach used to be.

Charlie smiles, getting up to root through their mountainside chests for food. There’s probably more inside, but he really can’t be bothered to go look for it. “You know,” he tries to make small talk as he continues to search, “we really should move the beds inside, shouldn’t we? We have a whole setup inside the Palcove now, but we’re still just sleeping out here on the cliff.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. We should probably carve out some kind of bedroom then, though. Unless you want to sleep in the hallway.”

Charlie chuckles lightly. “Yeah, we could probably do that, we’ve got space.” He tosses a slice of pumpkin pie to Ted before sitting back down on his bed, taking a bite of his own piece. “Maybe we should sleep on it, though.” 

“Charlie, we - we just woke up.”

“I know.” He smiles sheepishly. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”

Despite himself, Ted chuckles. The taste of pie on his tongue, the sound of Charlie’s voice, it’s helping him feel just a little more like himself again. The darkness of his dream already seems to be fading in the early morning light.

“Speaking of building,” Charlie continues through a mouthful of pie, “I was thinking, we could try to sort that contract thing out with Swagger and Schlatt today. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can get our hands on one of those cannons, and the sooner we can start working on that tower you talked about.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve got some ideas for that already,” Ted says. “After I come help you out with the contract I can already start gathering materials. We gotta agree on how we want to build it first, though. Here’s what I think...”

As he talks, Charlie finds Ted’s voice grounding him in the present. He’s not on Molympus, he’s not with Condi and Bizly, he’s not - not - he’s here. He’s here, at the Palcove with Ted, and he’s okay. A cool breeze brushes against his skin, taking the last of the memory of fire with it. He’s okay.

Being here like this, a friend by their side, a purpose to distract them, both find that it’s already that much easier to breathe. It’s that much easier to smile. It’s that much easier to forget there was ever anything to be afraid of.

The sun is rising. 

And the ghosts of the past and the future already seem distant.


End file.
